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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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THE REAL FOUNDER "* 



OF 



FA1RMQUNT PARK 



A UNILATERAL CORRESPONDENCE 



But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, 

As round and round we run ; 
And the truth shall ever come uppermost, 

And justice shall be done. 

Old English Poet. 






PHILADELPHIA 

DUNLAP PRINTING CO., 1332-38 CHERRY STREET 

1903 



1 



THE REAL FOUNDER 



OF 



FA1RMOUNT PARK 



A UNILATERAL CORRESPONDENCE 






But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, 

As round and round we run ; 
And the truth shall ever come uppermost, 

And justice shall be done. 

Old English Poet. 



PHILADELPHIA 

DUNLAP PRINTING CO., 1332-38 CHERRY STREET 

IQ03 



Philadelphia, June 23, 1903. 

Addison B. Burk, Esq. 

Dear Mr. Burk : — I have read with great in- 
terest and much pleasure your article in the 
Sunday Ledger, upon the "Making of Fairrnount 
Park," which appeared in the beginning of May 
last. Your very interesting account was divided 
(in the newspaper) into sections, each of which 
had an appropriate heading. Probably these head- 
ings were not made by yourself, but by some one 
in charge of the press work, who used them as a 
kind of index to the particular matter contained 
below each of them. One of these headings, en- 
titled "The Founder of the Park," is, I fear, cal- 
culated to leave a false impression, and as I feel a 
great interest in that matter, owing to my knowl- 
edge of the subject, and my intimate relations with 
the persons mentioned, I take the liberty of calling 
your attention to it. 

Mr. Dreer was a very charitable man and a citi- 
zen who possessed an unusual amount of public 
spirit and assisted greatly in promoting the success 
of the Park, but he was, in no sense, the originator 
and founder of the new Fairrnount Park. That 
honor is due to one person alone, viz. : to James 
Howard Castle, who was the real and original 

3 



projector of the Park, who first conceived the idea 
of Fairmount Park such as it exists to-day in all 
its magnificent beauty and whose almost unaided 
efforts procured the passage of the Act of Assembly 
(March 26, 1867, P- L. 547) which made the present 
Park a possibility. A generation has passed since 
that event and there are now few persons living 
who have a personal knowledge of the events of 
which I am about to speak. Of the ten citizens 
originally appointed Commissioners by the District 
Court and Court of Common Pleas in 1867 I do not 
think one now survives. Mr. Castle, himself one 
of the most active of the early Commissioners, died 
March 12, 1878, at the age of sixty. It was chiefly 
by his labors and persistent efforts that pretentious 
little Lemon Hill, and Pratt's garden with its beer 
houses and belongings were transformed by the 
instrumentality of the Act of March 26, 1867, into 
the present superb domain, ten miles in length 
and traversed by a beautiful river and its romantic 
affluents. 

Mr. Castle was a member of the Philadelphia bar 
and was in the later years of his life well known 
as an efficient member of the Board of Revision of 
Taxes. In 1867 n ^ s office was in a brick building 
on the east side of Fifth street, immediately north 
of and adjoining the old Philadelphia Library. 
We were very intimate friends and I was much at 
his office. In that year he prevailed upon the 
Legislature to pass the Act of 1867, and I remem- 
ber, as if it were yesterday, meeting him at his 



office upon his return from Harrisburg and wit- 
nessing, and I may also say, sharing his delight 
at the great success which he had finally achieved 
after a long period of labor, anxiety, and many 
frequent visits to Harrisburg at his own expense, 
advocating, nay, earnestly importuning the Legis- 
lature for the passage of the Act. He was engaged 
in this work for a year at least before his efforts 
were crowned with success. It seemed to occupy 
his thoughts constantly during that period. He 
talked to me about it incessantly. He received 
considerable encouragement and very valuable as- 
sistance from the late N. B. Browne, the first presi- 
dent of the Fidelity Company, who was one of the 
original Commissioners ; also from General Meade, 
Professor John C. Cresson, Theodore Cuyler, Mor- 
ton McMichael, Joseph Harrison, Gustavus Remak, 
Henry M. Phillips and John Edgar Thomson, all 
of them original Commissioners, and all of them 
long since deceased. 

Mr. Castle's idea in originating the scheme of a 
park of great extent and beauty was to provide a 
place in which the poorer classes of his fellow- 
citizens and their families might find health and 
recreation. That was the dominant idea in his mind. 
He often talked to me about this. The uppermost 
thought in his mind seemed to be to provide a 
pleasure ground for the poor and their children. 
He dwelt more upon this than upou any benefits to 
be derived by the City in its corporate capacity, 
from the enterprise. 



It happened that in 1847 I had for clients Messrs. 
Frederick W. and Samuel R. Downer, of New 
York, who had been introduced to me by Henry 
G. Deforest, Esq., of the New York Bar, and who 
had been my classmate at Amherst College during 
my freshman year there. At his instance they 
employed me to sue out certain ground rents which 
they owned, issuing out of Sedgely Park. I ac- 
cordingly brought suits in the District Court, and 
having obtained judgment for the arrearages I 
issued an execution under which the property was 
sold and ^bought in at the Sheriff's sale by the 
Downers, who received a Sheriff's deed for it, which 
is duly recorded and may be found in its proper 
place among the records of the old District Court. 
Subsequently, about 185 1, Mr. Deforest wrote to 
me on behalf of the Downers inquiring about 
Sedgely and whether it could be sold to advantage. 
Mr. Castle, even at that early date, had become in- 
terested in the idea of a great park for Philadelphia, 
and upon my mentioning the fact to him he im- 
mediately caught at the idea that the property 
might be secured for such a park. It ended by 
his going over to New York and buying the prop- 
erty in the name of Mr. Ferdinand J. Dreer, who 
was his intimate friend, it being understood be- 
tween them that Mr. Dreer should take the title and 
pay for the property, and that he should ultimately 
turn it over to the City for a park, upon such easy 
terms as he could afford. Those terms were well 
understood between Mr. Dreer and Mr. Castle. 



Mr. Dreer accordingly advanced the money for the 
purchase from the Downers and received from 
them a deed for the property dated March 21, 
1 85 1. He held the title until March 3, 1857, 
when, in pursuance of his original understanding 
with Mr. Castle, he generously conveyed it to 
Henry Cope and others in trust for the City, for a 
price amounting to about what he had himself paid 
for it, by a deed of that date recorded April 30, 
1857, ^ Deed Book R. D. W., 129, page 241, and 
it is worthy of remark that the deed was witnessed 
by James H. Castle. Thus it was that the City 
acquired for the Park the title to the whole of that 
large and beautiful domain known as Sedgely. 
These facts are all within my personal knowledge. 
I was frequently at Mr. Castle's office, and was 
fully cognizant of the arrangement between him- 
self and Mr. Dreer for the purchase of the prop- 
erty. These facts, as well as the fact that Mr. 
Castle first broached the idea of the Park, and 
more than any other person was entitled to be re- 
garded as the originator and founder of the new 
Fairmount Park, and the fact that it was brought 
into existence chiefly and almost entirely by his 
personal efforts in securing the passage of the Act 
of 1867, were well known to the late Eli K. Price, 
and to Mr. N. B. Browne, Mr. Cuyler, Mr. Remak, 
General Meade and the other original Commis- 
sioners, all of whom have long since passed from 
this earthly scene. 

I think you will agree to what I said in my let- 



ter to the president of the Hayes Mechanics' Home, 
which you quote in your interesting paper, viz. : 
"it is not creditable to the City of Philadelphia 
that among all the numerous monuments in the 
Park, of all kinds and to all kinds of men, includ- 
ing quite a number of foreign-born people, none is 
seen to the man who first conceived the idea of cre- 
ating a great and beautiful park for the people of 
his native City, and who labored so long to develop 
and propagate that idea among influential citizens, 
and devoted much of his time and no small pro- 
portion of his own slender means to journeys to 
Harrisburg to prevail upon the Legislature to pass 
the Act for the establishment and organization of 
Fairmount Park, and whose efforts were finally 
crowned with success — a success achieved almost 
entirely and exclusively by his sole, individual, 
persistent, continued and disinterested labors." 

I have always felt a lively interest in the Park ; 
for many pleasing recollections go back many 
years antecedent to its existence, that is, ante- 
cedent to the grant of the present charter in 1867 
— to a period indeed antecedent to Lemon Hill and 
its beer garden, to a time when the Schuylkill ran 
uu vexed to the Delaware, when shad were caught 
at the foot of the falls by a man standing upon the 
rocks below and wielding an ordinary scoop-net 
fastened to a pole with which he swept the adjacent 
waters. I myself beheld it, and it was a bonny 
sight to see the fish dancing and glittering in the 
sun, like molten silver in the fisherman's net, 



from which they were transferred later to the 
kitchen of Harding's tavern, then situated in a 
lovely bower of green trees, upon the western 
bank of the river, just below the falls. There, 
at the proper season, one might always pro- 
cure, upon short notice, a delicious supper of 
broiled shad — and afterward, while the sun still 
hung like'a lamp in the western sky, he might 
proceed to the large level compound in the rear 
and amuse himself by watching the soldiers and 
sportsmen shooting with a rifle at a mark a hun- 
dred yards away. 

The time of which I now speak was about 1837 
— thirty years before the grant of the great Park 
Charter by the Legislature (1867). At that period 
all the ground above the falls was private property. 
The banks of the stream, on both sides, being 
studded with pretty country seats, and the hill-sides 
clothed with green lawns and shady groves. I was 
then a lad of eighteen and a sophomore, and I was 
accustomed to tramp every morning down to the 
old University on Ninth street above Chestnut, 
with a bag (even then a green bag), loaded heavily 
with books, and thrown over my shoulder ; but 
every Saturday morning I and my associates were 
early on the road to the upper Schuylkill, where 
we passed the entire day fishing and rowing in the 
sunshine and shadow of those beautiful solitudes. 
That was indeed a life " worth living." But all 
this is changed now in this dreary hum-drum day 
of cold unromantic practicality, yet I am still at 



IO 

liberty to say sed juvat meminisse. But pleasant 
as these reminiscences are, I would not have 
thought of intruding them upon you and your 
readers, Mr. Editor, except I had been impelled to 
do so by a very strong sense of duty to the memory 
of the real author and founder of Fairmount Park 
— James Howard Castle. 

Whether his name shall be perpetuated amid 
those lovely scenes, in bronze or marble, is to him 
a matter of small consequence now. 

Can storied urn, or animated bust, 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 

Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 
Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? 

But if dissatisfied and ashamed of the public in- 
gratitude, you shall persist in demanding "Where 
is his monument ? " a voice, perhaps not wholly 
inaudible to some who revere the benefactors of 
their race, falling from those green heights and 
floating upward from the shining river in which 
their shadowed beauty is perpetually mirrored, 
may answer you as such an inquiry was once 
answered long ago in another land : Si quaeris 
monumentum circumspice — (l If you seek his monu- 
ment look around you." 

Yours truly, 

M. Russell Thayer. 



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